Shields were illegal in our wars. If you couldn't swat it away, then you'd better learn to run faster or jump higher.
Our platoons were natural shield only. Trees, cars, ditches, buildings.
Best war ever was when I was about 15. Probably had 20 or 30 participants. We took it seriously. Camo and face paint. Friend lived out in the country, house faced two-lane road. Across the road was a ditch, then an embankment and then woods behind it. Guy worked at a home goods store and brought lots of PVC. Cut into sections, capped on one end. Light the rocket, drop it in, point and aim. They were wide enough to put the bigger rockets in.
I was on the embankment side. The army by the house smoked us out of the ditch with some clever tactics -- smoke bombs, chasers, firecrackers lobbed into the ditch. They'd also set up a row of pipes in the ground to hit us with a barrage of missiles. In the shelling my shirt catches on fire. I roll to put it out, scramble up the embankment and find a fallen tree to get behind. Good cover. I'm driving them back across the road, turning the momentum. My guys are in the woods behind trees and raining bottle rocket hell back. I can see their leader crouching behind a bush by the mailbox, ammo at his side.
Load up one of the bigger rockets with the plastic nose cone. I light the fuse, drop the rocket into the tube and as I roll to fire somebody on my right screams "CAR!"
It was an unwritten rule that when cars came down the road, you pulled up. But I had this guy sighted. I drop a rocket at his feet and my team can retake the ditch and move forward. Maybe I blow up his whole bag of ammo. So I try to wait out this long, slow burning fuse. Car coming, car coming, fuse hissing. Just when I decide to alter the shot, the rocket comes roaring out of the tube. Apparently the stick is slightly bent because the flight isn't true. It wobbles and then takes a hard right, exploding right near the windshield of the oncoming car. In the brilliant flash the car's features are obvious. Gray with blue trim. Blue bubble on the top.
I've shot a state trooper.
Moment frozen in time. Unspooling in slow motion, I can plainly see his shocked expression illuminated in the fiery glow of the Super 8 Bottle Bomb or whatever it was. Brakes, fishtailing, tires squealing, blue lights pop. All around me I can hear my team scrambling through the woods. I look over the log and see the opposition abandoning their weapons and running for the back yard. Trooper gets out of the car, runs toward the ditch bellowing "all right, come out of there now" Some of my team surrendered. Not me. I slid as far as I could under the log. I stayed there even as the trooper tromped all around me.
He eventually stomped back across the road and read my friend's parents the riot act. In the end he did nothing of legal consequence other than a stern warning and went on his way, but the war there was over. As far as I know, they never had another one there.
That's almost as good as a later time when several of my friends and I got cuffed for blowing up a city cop in a similar manner, but that story is for another day.
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